Researchers Have Found a Crucial Cache of Helium Underground in Africa

Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe, but on Earth it's become harder and harder to find. Stores at the U.S. Federal Helium Reserve—a government-run stockpile established in the 1920s to supply a fleet of airships that would never arrive—account for 30 percent of the world's helium supply but is expected to be running dry by 2020.

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That will have effects on things much more important than the party balloon industry; with a boiling point near absolute zero, the inert gas has all kinds of applications and uses in medicine and technology. It's crucial in everything from MRI machines to particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider. But on the verge of a serious shortage, researches have found a whole new stash.

This is enough to fill over 1.2 million medical MRI scanners. To put this discovery into perspective, global consumption of helium is about 8 BCf per year and the United States Federal Helium Reserve, which is the world's largest supplier, has a current reserve of just 24.2 BCf.

The cache, if as big as estimated, would be a 30 percent boost to the United States' total supply, and the US is already the producer of 75 percent of the world's helium.

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